August 15, 2014

What Nobody Tells You About Yoga by Laura Stumpf

When people tell their friends to try
yoga, they always say, “You’ll feel so good! I’m always so relaxed after yoga.”

What they don’t tell you is that
sometimes, yoga makes you feel like shit.

Some yogis say that emotions are
stored in the body, that memories linger on in cells stored deep in
our muscles. When we go into a yoga pose and open a part of the body that has
been mostly left alone until then, we stretch and release muscles that have
gone unnoticed for years. We release tension, and in the process release
memories and emotions that were stored in childhood, and have quietly slept
deep in our bones ever since.

So one minute you may be lying on
your back, enjoying happy baby, and the next minute you are flooded with rage
and want to punch a baby in the face. You have no idea what triggered it, there
is no reason to be feeling this emotion now, but it’s here and it’s real and it
has to be worked through.

I’m not sure if I think emotions are
stored in our muscles, but it makes perfect sense to me that yoga brings up
emotions. In our practice, we learn to control our
breath, to calm our minds, to help our bodies unwind. At first, this
is great—we sleep better at night, we’re less stressed, and we feel great
having released the tension from our shoulders. We learn to cope with our
day-to-day stress, to release the muscles we have tensed up with our daily
activities.

On the surface, everything is going
great. But we are multidimensional beings, with long emotional histories.
We have been sad and scared and lonely in the past, and we have suppressed old
scars and defeats and humiliations just to be able to function in our everyday
lives.

As we learn to connect to our breath,
yoga starts working more efficiently.

Stress, anxiety, tension—wiped out!
So it starts working on the backlog, trying to sort through some of that old
mess, so you can finally unclutter your innermost being. Things you haven’t
thought about in years suddenly rise up in Warrior II, and you can’t stop
crying inSavasanabecause you’re infinitely sad and have no idea
why.

It’s easy to feel like a lunatic when
one of these emotional tidal waves strikes in the middle of yoga class. Nobody
warned me about this phenomenon, and the first time I experienced it I was
worrying about what other people thought of the tears running down my face
instead of being present and feeling.

In Savasana, I lay on the floor,
looking up at my teacher with teary eyes, pleading for an explanation. She just
smiled and whispered, “It feels good to let it out.” Once she had
given me permission to give in to the experience, my muscles immediately
relaxed. I closed my eyes and felt the tears running down my face, and I felt
all the sadness emptying out of my body. I felt so deeply relieved and
peaceful.

I will always be grateful to that
yoga instructor. She gave me a place where it was safe to feel all of the
stress that had been accumulating in my life, to surrender, and to let it go.

It’s a cathartic process.

In the moment, it sucks. It sucks to
feel sad, to feel angry, to feel pain. But at the same time, it feels really
good to finally, fully feel. If you can create a safe space for yourself, in
your body—to experience these emotions without judging, just accepting whatever
comes up, and riding the wave—you, my friend, are really doing yoga. Your
practice is far more advanced than the man who can put his feet behind his
head.

The more we
release our pasts, the more we are able to be present and enjoy everything that
this moment has to offer.

So don’t try to hold back your tears,
and don’t tell yourself that you’re being ridiculous the next time pigeon pose
makes you want to bawl your eyes out. Remember, if yoga makes you feel like
shit, that just means it’s working

Yoga Experience with Tracy Von Kaenel

About This Blog

Tracy graduated from Northern Illinois University with a B.A. in Dance and Theatre. She recieved her Advanced Level II Instructors Certification from the Kriya Temple of Yoga in Chicago. Tracy has been a dance and yoga instructor for over 30 years. Please enjoy exploring this blog with the following entries.
*Philosopy Corner--
*Physical Fixes--
*Student Discoveries--
*Class Updates--
*FYI--
**Namaste, Tracy**